Province Island
by dummyface
Summary: An idea for a game based upon my favorite Stephen King short story, The Mist.


Alright, the idea for my game is loosely based on The Mist, a short story by Stephen King. I think that Open Ended Environments, such as the one in Grand Theft Auto, are just great. However, I think that many gamers would rather change the intimacy of the environment for the size. For example, some people would rather have one medium island where every single building and every single item is interactable rather than three huge islands where nothing is interactable except in a few select houses. My game would see a change to this. This is the situation:

Imagine yourself starting the game in your house right after a storm. You can look out your window, and see a mist rising over the bay that your house overlooks. You are told that you have three real-time hours to prepare before the Mist to get here. You have no idea what it means, but you know that something wicked this way comes.

So, you walk through your completely interactable house. You can get in your fridge to get a drink, or you can go to your bathroom to pee, or you can go to your bedroom and sleep the hours away. But, what you want to do is walk outside, where your trusty Scout is sitting. You clamber into it, and you come into control of the vehicle. You drive down the dirt road that leads to your house, and you merge onto the highway.

You see the superstore to your left, and there are people milling around in front of it. In this game, people are permanent. You can exterminate every person on the island and be alone, or you can leave them all alive to be bait for what's coming. If you run into somebody else's truck, that truck is damaged for the duration of the game. This game sees everything as permanent, from the people, to the food, to every item, to every bullet shell. This sounds imposing at first, but it really will bring this particular game to an entire new level of realism. You walk into the supermarket, and talk to the people in it. They're all abuzz about the Mist that's rolling over the bay towards them, and how it's apparently running against the wind.

You meet an old woman who just wants to get home. You meet a drunk who is stumbling towards the liquor section. You meet the cashier who's nervous and wants to get off work. Every single person has a completely independent personality, and the way they behave towards you is directly a product of the way you've behaved towards them. If you smack them in the face, they cower away, or become confrontational. If you are friendly, and talk to them, or do something nice for them, they become your friend, and thusly more likely to listen to you in the very stressful times ahead.

You buy some beer, some beef jerky, and some M&Ms from the cashier with money out of your wallet. You take your bag out to your Scout, and you see a wreck happen across the street from you. A woman jumps out of her car and starts to scream at the man who hit her. The man, apparently ignoring her, backs his busted vehicle off of hers, and goes roaring off into the distance.

You decide that you might need a little more supplies. You go to the Pawn Shop, and buy yourself a shotgun and some rounds. The cashier talks to you about the Mist that's coming, and asks you what you think is going to happen. He points out that all electronic communication devices have ceased to function. The radio is producing white noise, and the tv is nothing but a grey blur. He also informs you that the ferry, the only way in or out of town, has announced that it is not going to run for the next few days because of damage caused by the storm. You, again, walk out to your Scout, and put your supplies in there. You start to worry about what's going to happen, and the gamer is left in suspense as to what lies in the mist. You decide that you want to hole up somewhere. This is where the game really takes off. Do you want to hole up in the supermarket? You can go inside and fortify the windows with things from tables to bags of dog food. The downfall? There is no weapons cache at a supermarket. You can stay in the Pawn Shop with the man that sold you your gun. The problem? No steady supply of food. You could hole up in places like the laundromat, the gas station, the hardware store, anywhere. You can even hole up in your house, but will be forced to deal with whatever comes all on your lonesome.

Let's say that you decide to stay in the Pawn Shop. The shopkeep tells you that you're more than welcome to stay, but you have very little food. You decide to fix this problem by going to the Supermarket and spending your last remaining cash on a huge bundle of food to take in with you to the Pawn Shop fortress. You get everything put together. You use old wardrobes to block off the only windows. You borrow some money from the Shopkeep, and go to the hardware store to buy a hammer and nails to nail up the door. Keep in mind that you only have three hours to do this. You do all the things necessary, and you have everything done except the final nailing of the door. You see the mist coming, and you know that you have less than twenty minutes to get done.

You want, however, to save as many as you can. So you go to the Supermarket, and try to pick up the people who you had seen earlier. Some, the ones you were mean to, decide to take their chances on the road, and declare that they want nothing more than to get home. Others, looking for a leader, ask you to show them the way, and they follow you to the pawn shop. Downfall? More people now have to survive off of the food that you collected earlier, and hunger is a stat that is constantly nagging the player. The mist finally comes, and a cutscene starts.

You see people who were standing out on the sidewalk get engulfed by the mist, and then scream. The gamer, at this point, still has whatever monsters there are still rumbling in their imagination. You see cars come sailing out of the mist, thrown through the air. You see your own scout sucked in, and then spat out of the mist in pieces. At this point, at least one of the people you brought with you to the pawn shop has started to freak out. You have two choices: try to console them, or intimidate them. You can see that their panic is causing panic in the other few people in the shop, and you can't have that. You kill the offender. The people around you become angry and afraid, wondering why you killed the complainer. They turn on you, and you have to kill them as well. When it's all said and done, you are left alone in the pawn shop with five dead bodies. At this point, a prompt comes up, and the gamer is informed that he or she has to survive 56 hours of real time gaming until the ferry gets there.

This gives the player all sorts of choices. The mist hovers over the island, housing monsters. The gamer decides that he or she doesn't have enough weaponry, so they try to run two blocks down to the hardware store to get a chainsaw or some other form of nasty weaponry. When you get there, you find a massacre. Six or seven people lie torn in bloody pieces by whatever monsters are lurking in the mist. You grab a chainsaw and turn around. You find your path to the pawn shop blocked by a monster that looks like a giant spider. You kill it using whatever weapons you have brought with you, chainsaw, gun, whatever. The game goes on this way. You try to find other people on the island who have survived, and you have to cooperate with them to survive. You have to eat, you have to sleep sometimes, and you have to stay alive. You encounter monsters, and different situations arise depending on what people you are with. A man might decide to go bonkers and start killing children. You obviously have to put an end to that. Another man may decide to lead an expedition to the beach to try and swim off the island. You go with him, and watch as he tries to swim across the bay to the mainland a few miles offshore. You see him get destroyed by some horrific sea monster that has arisen from the mist, and you have to fight your way back to whatever fortress it is that you've chosen.

There are some almost unbeatable monsters, that serve as bosses, that arise at certain times, and you have to be prepared to deal with them as well. You have to kill some people to make sure that there is enough food, you have to try and get a vehicle, but you can't just hijack them like you can on GTA. You have to find the keys, and know where the vehicle is. If you accidentally shot the gas tank before when you were fighting spiders, you're just S.O.L. You have hundreds of different situations that come up. Starvation, lack of electricity, lack of plumbing, you can have love interests, you can drink and get drunk, you can sleep, you can stab people in the temple with screwdrivers, you can do whatever you want, but you have to survive the hellish deathtrap full of monsters for 56 hours, until the ferry gets there, and the end of the game arrives. When the ferry gets there, you have to make sure that there are no monster stowaways, and you have to fight that enormous water monster that ate the guy earlier. I think it's a solid idea.

Problems people might have:

This game might be boring, how can you have fun in an environment like this for 56 hours?

Well, you do that by making absolutely everything interactable. The player can get drunk, do whatever the hell they feel like, for as long as they like. Also, there will be no skimping on the enemies, and they will be the only thing that continues to spawn.

How much of a problem can you make out of starvation?

Food should be important. There should be several staples in this game that you HAVE to have to survive. Food, water, a place to go to the bathroom, etc. You can starve, get sick, or go insane if some of these conditions aren't met. You can go insane and lose the game if, for example, you put yourself in a situation where you're all alone for too long. It'll be simslike in that you have to have contact with other people, and not just the same person all the time.

What if you destroy something bad? Won't it mess up the game for the rest of the duration? You'll have lots of frustrated gamers!

Not at all. There would be a save function, allowing you to save whenever. There would also be an hour save function, where the game will independently save whatever your progress is every hour, and you can go back to whatever hour you want.

I like big environments, I like the diversity!

This game will offer a whole new level of interaction. You can pick up individual bags of chips, you can find boots under your bed, and everything will be permanent. This island will offer houses to hide in, a laundromat, a pawn shop, a hardware store, a supermarket, a gas station, a lighthouse, and some shipyards. That is diversity enough, methinks.

Characters:

This is just a main list of characters, if called upon, I could come up with more.

Eric Rodriguez- the main character. He is tall, dark brown hair, and kind of skinny. He is a social animal, and needs people to function. People, also, find him intriguing, and he is a natural born leader. His charisma shows through his deep voice and his graceful movement.

Tina Young- another important character. She meets you in the front of the supermarket at the beginning of the game, and decides that you must have the answer to whatever problems are coming. She says that, if you'll have her, she'll gladly go with you anywhere. Love interests with the main character are completely possible later on. She also is tall, but has flaming red hair. She's well spoken and intelligent, but a little bewildered by the events harassing her town. She provides a calm, feminine view on things that the main character sometimes may not be able to see.

James Marshall- a worthless drunk that stumbles around town. He is always dressed in a crappy gray jacket and blue jeans. He is constantly intoxicated, but is very strong and resistant to pressure. He provides an excellent addition to your group if you are prepared to accept the responsibility for his actions made with impaired judgement.

Sarah Kauffman- a complete spaz. She is constantly worried about things, and overreacting to whatever is going on. She, however, also provides a safer view of things when the group is in trouble, and can help keep you out of tight spots. She is short, chubby, and has chopped black hair.

There are, obviously, dozens of other characters. These are just a few sketches to show their general personalities. If called upon, I can make more.

Locations-

Laundromat- Easy to fortify. There's lots of washers and dryers to put in front of doors and windows, and even some of the meanest monsters will have a hard time breaking in. The downfall? Very little if any food, and no weapons.

Gas station- a pretty good all around location. There's a little food, and a few supplies. It's also relatively easy to escape from, what with all the cars. The downfall? No weapons, and it's a little bit difficult to fortify. If one were to purchase a few weapons from the pawn shop and some boards and nails from the hardware store, though, you'd be set up.

Hardware store- obviously, the easiest place to fortify and the place of the most weapons. The downfall? Very little space for very many people, and very little capacity for food storage. If one were just with, maybe one other person, though, and you bought enough food, you'd be alright.

Supermarket- huge amounts of food, some rudimentary supplies, and plenty of room for everybody in town. The downfall? Very difficult to fortify and hold down. Lots of exits for monsters to get in or out. This also provides, though, a good place to start. Lots of cars in the parking lot, and plenty of room, food, and water makes survival a little bit easier.

Houses- Extremely easy to fortify, extremely easy to defend, but little opportunity for social activity, and if you get caught in a rut with monsters, there's no one there to help bail you out.

Pawn shop- easy to fortify, easy to defend, but not enough room for people. There's good weapons, but not a lot of them. You have to improvise to get stuff done.

I think this is descriptive enough for now. If any more information is needed, let me know. I can produce concept art if needed.


End file.
